Matthew Brennan was shocked to race Omloop Het Nieuwsblad last year. He was, after all, part of Visma–Lease a Bike’s development team, destined to race in the lower tiers and build his experience before stepping up to race alongside the likes of Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard in the World Tour. However, Brennan could just not stop winning.
At the beginning of last season, at the age of 19, he won three races in France, including Grand Prix de Denain (regarded as a mini Paris-Roubaix) and then won two stages of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya as part of Visma’s top-tier World Team. In the first stage of that race, he beat the ten-times grand tour stage winner Kaden Groves and he did it again on stage five.
Thus began a season where Brennan — “The Binman” — not only stepped up to World Team level earlier than expected but also continued that rich vein of winning when he did. In total he achieved 13 victories in 2025, as well as the general classification at the Tour of Norway.
In 2026, then, it will be no shock to him when he lines up for Omloop at the opening weekend of classics season in Ghent on Saturday. In fact, Brennan will be an outside favourite for victory if he can first topple his esteemed team-mate Van Aert, in-form compatriot Tom Pidcock of Pinarello-Q36.5 and the mighty Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Premier Tech.
Brennan is a sprinter, at least on paper. He gained his nickname at his first club, the Stockton Wheelers, where the finish line in races was often marked by a sprint for a wheelie bin. And most of his victories have come from groups. Inevitably, he has drawn comparisons to Mark Cavendish, Britain’s greatest ever sprinter. But as Robbert de Groot, Visma’s head of development, once said: “Cav never won an uphill sprint after 3,000m of climbing, but that’s what Matthew did in Catalunya.”
The difference between The Binman and the Manx Missile was clear not just at Catalunya. Stage five of the Tour of Poland covered 206km from Katowice to Zakopane with 2,763m of elevation gain. Brennan not only made it to the end but in the last kilometre came from ten wheels back on the uphill finish, sprinted past everyone with ease and would not be caught.
This season, the 20-year-old is an undisputed member of the Visma team and has already taken his first win at the Santos Tour Down Under on stage five. He will race at many of the classics and monuments including Milan-San Remo (where his sprint may come in handy) and he will return to Paris-Roubaix in April. Then, in August, he will tackle his first grand tour at La Vuelta.
But for now, he will act as understudy, and perhaps co-leader, to Van Aert. “I look like a little kid on the bike and he’s an absolute engine,” Brennan said of the Belgian.
Van Aert will want victory at Omloop and Strade Bianche (races he has won in the past) but the 31-year-old Belgian’s form has been patchy in recent years because he has struggled with illness, injury and surgeries. Already this year, in January, Van Aert fractured his ankle during a cyclo-cross race, which will have an effect on his road preparation.
Brennan, at 20, became the youngest winner of a Tour of Britain stage last September
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND
While Van Aert showed flashes of his old self last year — most notably becoming one of a select group of riders in 2025 to actually beat Tadej Pogacar after attacking him on the cobbled climb of Montmartre on the final stage of the Tour de France — he has been inconsistent, no longer considered one of the dominant forces of cycling like he was in between 2020-22 when he regularly battled his rival Mathieu van der Poel. If Van Aert is not back to his best shape this spring, then 2026 could be the year of The Binman.
But on Saturday, both Visma men will have to beat Pidcock, who is in the form of his life after taking third place at La Vuelta last year. His team, Pinarello-Q36.5, have been bolstered by the addition of Fred Wright and Thomas Gloag in support of Pidcock and their confidence and finances are riding high with Italian bike brand Pinarello coming onboard as a headline sponsor.
Pidcock has already taken his first win of the season on the final stage of the Vuelta a Andalucia in a show of power that will be ominous to many and asserts the Yorkshireman’s claims to being one of the top puncheurs in the peloton. On the final short climb of the day, Pidcock attacked out of a reduced group putting out an estimated massive 8.23w/kg power output on the Alto de la Primera Cruz to break free, descend the other side into Lucena and win.
Brennan has continued his fine form from last year, winning stage five at the Tour Down Under in late January with another sprint finish
CON CHRONIS/GETTY IMAGES
“We’ve trained super hard this winter,” Pidcock said after the race. “We made a big commitment as well as a team, both financially and taking a . . . not a risk, but trying something new to go to Chile and train there.
“It’s always difficult when you come from training so hard to get into the racing and be able to put it all on the line. But it’s great for us as a team that we can get a victory under our belt already.”
There is a feeling that in 2026, at the age of 26, Pidcock is coming into his prime. Last year may well have been a transition year for him in his new team after moving away from Ineos Grenadiers, but now he will feel the need to deliver big results — especially after his podium finish at La Vuelta. As always he has his eyes on Strade Bianche (where he won in 2023), Milan-San Remo and the Ardennes Classics in particular but with his second-tier team being invited to the Tour de France he will bear the responsibility of that too.
Brennan and Van Aert will need to stick with Pidcock at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, a hilly and cobbled race that covers 207km from Ghent to Ninove. If Brennan can survive to the very end, he may well be able to do what he does best and unleash that mighty sprint — and if not, there’s plenty more racing to come in 2026 for The Binman.